Lambda Literary is proud to announce details of the 2019 Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices, the nation's premier LGBTQ writer's workshop and residency. The Retreat will be held August 4-11, 2019 on the campus of Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. Applications are now open online.

Applications are open until February 1, 2019. The Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices offers intensive and sophisticated instruction to selected writers over a carefully designed one-week period. The Retreat provides writers access to industry professionals and the opportunity to advance in their craft and careers. It is one of Lambda's most dynamic initiatives: it represents the future of LGBTQ literature. Applicants of the Retreat submit prose, poetry or theatrical manuscript pages that are evaluated for craft, creativity and originality.

Twelve students per workshop are accepted into the competitive program where they spend the week working on their manuscripts, attending guest lectures led by publishing industry professionals, and participating in public readings in venues around Los Angeles. Ability to pay is in no way part of the decision-making process and scholarships are available. Lambda Writers Retreat Fellows have gone on to publish an impressive array of works. The 2019 Retreat instructors are below.

The Lammys honor books in more than twenty genres ranging from literary fiction and poetry to speculative fiction, graphic novels, and memoir. New this year is the addition of a bisexual poetry category.

"We are thrilled to add bisexual poetry to the books we'll honor next year," said Ella Boureau, Lambda Literary Awards Manager. "Our community made it clear that this is an important category to recognize, and we listened."

Books submitted for consideration in this Lammys cycle must be published between January 1 and December 31, 2018 and meet all of the submission guidelines. Please read the guidelines carefully and choose the correct category before you submit.

Finalists will be announced in March 2019. Winners will be revealed at the Lambda Literary Awards awards ceremony held on June 3, 2019 at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. Tickets for the gala go on sale in spring 2019.

Lambda Literary, the nation's oldest and largest literary arts organization advancing LGBTQ literature, announced the finalists of the 29th Annual Lambda Literary Awards - or the "Lammys," as they are affectionately known. They were chosen from nearly 900 submissions and over 300 publishers. Submissions came from major mainstream publishers and from independent presses, from both long-established and new LGBTQ publishers, as well as from emerging publish-on-demand technologies. Visionary and Trustee Award honorees, the master of ceremonies, and celebrity presenters will be announced in April. The winners will be announced at a gala ceremony on Monday evening, June 12, 2017 in New York City.

"Never in my lifetime have LGBTQ stories felt so important as a means of being recognized and counted, as a form of resistance to this dangerous political climate we find ourselves in," said Lambda Literary Executive Director Tony Valenzuela. "The Lammys are a celebration of great queer literature, and this year they're also a reminder that our community of writers, publishers, and readers is not only strong, but part of a vital pathway to asserting our humanity."

Now in their twenty-ninth year, the Lambda Literary Awards celebrate achievement in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer writing for books published in 2016. The awards ceremony on June 12, 2017, will be held at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts (566 LaGuardia Pl, New York, NY 10012). The red carpet and specially ticketed VIP cocktail reception will be held before the ceremony. The after-party, open to all with a general admission ticket, will follow at Le Poisson Rouge (158 Bleecker St, New York, NY 10012). For more information and to buy tickets, please visit Lambda's website.

Tickets for the Lambda Literary Awards ceremony, pre-ceremony VIP cocktail reception and after-party go on sale today. For information, visit Lambda's website and join the conversation by following the hashtag #Lammys on Twitter. Early bird tickets at discounted prices are available until April 14th. Tickets for the ceremony and after-party are $150 ($125 early bird). Tickets that include the VIP cocktail reception are $250 ($225 early bird). Prices will increase by $25 on April 14th.

29th Annual Lambda Literary Award Finalists

Note: The number of finalists in a category is determined by the number of submissions in that category.

Lambda Literary is proud to announce details of the 2017 Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices, the nation's premier LGBTQ writers workshop and residency. The Retreat will be held August 5-12, 2017 on the campus of Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles.

In 2007, Lambda Literary founded the Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices, a residency designed to offer intensive and sophisticated instruction to selected writers over a carefully designed one-week period. The Retreat provides open access to industry professionals and the opportunity for writing fellows to create an ongoing community of practice as they advance in their craft and careers. It is one of Lambda's most important initiatives: it represents the future of LGBTQ literature.

Applicants of the Retreat submit prose, poetry or theatrical manuscript pages that are evaluated for craft, creativity and originality. Twelve students per workshop are accepted into the competitive program where they spend the week working on their manuscripts, attending guest lectures led by publishing industry professionals, and participating in public readings in venues around Los Angeles. Ability to pay is in no way part of the decision-making process and scholarships are available. Lambda Writers Retreat Fellows have gone on to publish an impressive array of works.

Lambda Fellows (Retreat graduates) are invited to return to attend faculty-led workshops or as "Writers in Residence" to work on a book in progress without needing to enroll in a workshop. Lambda Fellows should contact Kyle Sawyer, Programs Coordinator, at admin@lambdaliterary.org for more information.

Entering its 11th year, Lambda's Writers Retreat has gained an international reputation for nurturing talented writers and building a highly accomplished, diverse and engaged community of artists committed to advancing LGBTQ literature.

Diana Cage (NONFICTION) is an author, performer, essayist, and editor. She is the author of six books and editor of two anthologies of fiction and essays. Diana's most recent book, Lesbian Sex Bible won a 2015 Lambda Literary Award. Her other nonfiction books include Mind Blowing Sex: A Woman's Guide, Girl Meets Girl: A Dating Survival Guide, Threeways, Bottoms Up: Writing About Sex and the chapbook The Husbands. Diana's nonfiction writing blends essay, memoir, and nonfiction prose to look intimately at sex, sexuality, bodies, relationships, and queerness. As a member of the What Would an HIV Doula Do? collective Diana works to bring attention to the HIV/AIDS crisis as an ongoing intersectional political reality. She is also a member of the feminist avant-garde literary collective Belladonna*, promoting and publishing critical, political poetry and prose. Diana was formerly editor of the historic lesbian magazine On Our Backs, and host of The Diana Cage Show on SiriusXM. She lives in Brooklyn and teaches writing at Pratt Institute.

Garth Greenwell (FICTION) is the author of What Belongs to You, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. A NYT Book Review Editors' Choice, it is being translated into ten languages, and has been named one of the best books of 2016 by Publishers Weekly, Esquire, Slate, Vulture, and the New Republic, among others. His short fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, A Public Space, and VICE, and he has written criticism for The London Review of Books, the New York Times Book Review, and for the New Yorker and the Atlantic online. A native of Louisville, KY, he holds graduate degrees from Harvard University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He lives in Iowa City.

Phillip Howze (PLAYWRITING) is a playwright whose work has been developed or produced at Bay Area Playwrights Festival, BRIC Arts-Media, Bushwick Starr, Clubbed Thumb, Cutting Ball Theater, Theater Masters, PRELUDE Festival 2015, San Francisco Playhouse, SPACE at Ryder Farm, Sundance Institute, and Yale Cabaret. A graduate of Yale School of Drama, he is the 2015-16 Artist Fellow at Lincoln Center Education, and a member of the 2016 Emerging Writers Group at the Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival. He is currently a Resident Writer at Lincoln Center Theater, and was previously a visiting lecturer in playwriting at Wesleyan University. Prior to attending graduate school he worked in advocacy at the Open Society Foundations.

Malinda Lo (GENRE FICTION) is the author of the young adult novels Ash, Huntress, Adaptation, and Inheritance. Ash was a finalist for the William C. Morris YA Debut Award, the Andre Norton Award for YA Science Fiction and Fantasy, the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, and was a Kirkus Best Book for Children and Teens. She has been a three-time finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. Malinda's nonfiction has been published by The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The Huffington Post, The Toast, The Horn Book, and AfterEllen. Malinda is co-founder with Cindy Pon of Diversity in YA, a project that celebrates diversity in young adult books. She lives in Massachusetts with her partner and their dog.

TC Tolbert (POETRY) often identifies as a trans and genderqueer feminist, collaborator, dancer, and poet but really s/he's just a human in love with humans doing human things. The author of Gephyromania (Ahsahta Press 2014), Conditions/Conditioning (a collaborative chapbook with Jen Hofer, New Lights Press 2014) I: Not He: Not I (Pity Milk chapbook 2014), spirare (Belladonna* chaplet 2012), and territories of folding (Kore Press chapbook 2011), TC is also co-editor of Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics (Nightboat Books 2013), the first anthology of its kind. S/he is Core Faculty in the low residency MFA program at OSU-Cascades and Arts and Culture co-editor for The Feminist Wire. S/he spends his summers leading wilderness trips for Outward Bound.

Thanks to Movement Salon and the Architects, TC keeps showing up and paying attention. His favorite thing in the world is Compositional Improvisation (which is another way of saying being alive). Gloria Anzaldúa said, Voyager, there are no bridges, one builds them as one walks. John Cage said, it's lighter than you think.

Lambda Literary is proud to announce the opening of the submissions period for the 29th Annual Lambda Literary Awards (Lammys). Entering their 29th year, the Lammys honor books in more than twenty genres ranging from literary fiction and poetry to speculative fiction, graphic novels and memoir.

Books submitted for consideration in this Lammys cycle must be published between January 1st and December 31st, 2016 and meet the Lammys Submission Guidelines. Finalists will be announced in March 2017 and Lammy Awards will be presented at the annual Lambda Literary Awards gala planned for June of 2017 in New York City.

The Lammys celebrate the best in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender literature and honor groundbreaking work by members of the LGBTQ literary community. Since its inception in 1989, Lambda Literary has awarded more than 550 Lammys to outstanding authors including Dorothy Allison, Edmund White, Cherrie Moraga, Leslie Feinberg, Samuel R. Delany, Kate Bornstein, Armistead Maupin, Rita Mae Brown, John Waters and Hilton Als.

The revised guidelines and online submission form are available on the Lambda Literary website. The submission period will close on December 1, 2016. Please carefully read the guidelines and make sure you are entering the correct category before you submit.

Lambda Literary, the nation's leading national nonprofit organization promoting LGBTQ literature, is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2016 Judith A. Markowitz Emerging Writer Award. This year Lambda recognizes Bryan Borland and JP Howard.

The judges for the prize were award-winning authors Reginald Harris and Lee Lynch. In a joint statement they said of this year's winners:

"Bryan Borland is the very epitome of literary activism. A prolific and engaging poet, he is the founder of Sibling Rivalry Press and Founding Editor of the literary journal Assaracus. His press also publishes a quarterly of queer and trans women's poetry called Adrienne. Mr. Borland has demonstrated that he is energetic and ambitious not only for his own beautiful work, but for his community of LGBTQ poets."They continued, "JP Howard stands out both for her fine poetry and for her passionate, unrelenting involvement with and on behalf of lesbians of color, all lesbians, and the LGBTQ literary community. She reverently celebrates our forebears. A poet, a teacher, and a curator, Ms. Howard has shown an ongoing commitment to nurturing our writers and to writing and publishing from her heart."

The Emerging Writer Award, which consists of two cash prizes of $1000, is made possible by Judith A. Markowitz who is committed to helping LGBT literature flourish by recognizing talented new writers. To qualify for the award, recipients must have published up to 2 books or 1 book and additional literary work such as short stories, essays or journalistic articles.

"This year's judges considered a very wide field of exceptional nominations," said LL Executive Director, Tony Valenzuela. "We congratulate the winners for their well-deserved achievement and for their exciting new works yet to come."

2016 Judith Markowitz Emerging Writer Award Winners

Bryan Borland, a 2015 Lambda Fellow in Poetry, is the founder and publisher of Sibling Rivalry Press. He is the author of two books of poetry, My Life as Adam, which was selected by the American Library Association for its first annual "Over the Rainbow" list of recommended LGBT-themed publications, and Less Fortunate Pirates: Poems from the First Year Without My Father, both from Sibling Rivalry Press. He is also the founding editor of Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry, which was honored in its first year by Library Journal as a "Best New Magazine," the editor of Lady Business: A Celebration of Lesbian Poetry, which was included on 2013's "Over the Rainbow" list, and the co-editor of Joy Exhaustible, an anthology highlighting the writing of gay publishers and editors, which was included on 2014's "Over the Rainbow" list. His third collection of poetry, DIG, will be published in the fall of 2016 by Stillhouse Press. He lives in Arkansas with his husband and co-publisher of Sibling Rivalry Press, the poet Seth Pennington.

JP Howard aka Juliet P. Howard is a Cave Canem graduate fellow. She is the author of SAY/MIRROR, a debut poetry collection published by The Operating System (1st ed, 2015, 2nd expanded ed, 2016) and a chaplet "bury your love poems here" (Belladonna Collaborative*, June 2015). SAY/MIRROR has been nominated as a Lambda Literary Awards Finalist. JP curates and nurtures Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon (WWBPS), a forum offering writers at all levels a monthly venue to come together in a positive and supportive space. The Salon celebrates a diverse array of writers and includes a large LGBTQ POC membership. JP is the recipient of a 2016 Brooklyn Arts Council grant on behalf of the Salon. She is an alum of the VONA/Voices Writers Workshop, as well as a Lambda Literary Emerging LGBT Voices Poetry Fellow. JP was a finalist in The Feminist Wire's 2014 1st Poetry Contest and a finalist in the poetry category for the Lesbian Writer's Fund of Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. Her poems and/or essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Apogee Journal, The Feminist Wire, Split this Rock, Nepantla: A Journal for Queer Poets of Color, Muzzle Magazine, PLUCK! Journal of Affrilachian Arts and Culture, Adrienne: A Poetry Journal of Queer Women, The Best American Poetry Blog, MiPOesias, The Mom Egg, Talking Writing, Connotation Press and the anthology, Stand Our Ground: Poems for Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander. She lives in New York with her beautiful queer family and is very proud that they were on the cover of Gay Parent Magazine. JP holds a BA from Barnard College, a JD from Brooklyn Law School and earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the City College of New York. You can find her online at http://www.jp-howard.com.

The 28th Annual Lambda Literary Awards - or the "Lammys," as they are affectionately known - kick off another record-breaking year with today's announcement of the finalists. They were chosen from a record 933 submissions (up from 818 last year) from 321 publishers. Submissions came from major mainstream publishers and from independent presses, from both long-established and new LGBT publishers, as well as from emerging publish-on-demand technologies. Pioneer and Trustee Award honorees, the master of ceremonies, and presenters will be announced in April. The winners will be announced at a gala ceremony on Monday evening, June 6, 2016 in New York City.

"The Lambda Literary Awards were founded in 1989 to elevate the profile of LGBT literature," said Lambda Literary Board President, KG MacGregor. "In so doing, we also elevate the lives of those who find themselves authentically portrayed in our stories. It is with great pride that we come together each year to celebrate the excellent works of inspiring authors who have walked in our shoes."

Now in their twenty-eighth year, the Lambda Literary Awards celebrate achievement in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) writing for books published in 2015. The awards ceremony on June 6, 2016, will be held at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts (566 LaGuardia Pl, New York, NY 10012). The red carpet and specially ticketed VIP Cocktail Reception will be held before the ceremony. The after-party, open to all with a general admission ticket, will follow at Le Poisson Rouge. For more information and to buy tickets, please visit www.lambdaliterary.org/awards.

Nearly 100 literary professionals, including booksellers, book reviewers, librarians, authors, academics and previous Lammy winners and finalists volunteered countless hours of reading, critical thinking, and invigorating discussion to select the finalists in 25 categories, including the inaugural year for Transgender Poetry.

"Being nominated for a Lammy is an outstanding achievement among such a crowded field of submissions and within an LGBTQ writing community rich with talent," said Lambda Literary Executive Director, Tony Valenzuela. "I'd also like to thank our judges whose passionate commitment is a tremendous contribution to our literary communities."

Tickets for the Lambda Literary Awards ceremony, pre-ceremony VIP Cocktail Reception and after-party go on sale today. For information, visit our website and join the conversation by following the hashtag #Lammys on Twitter. Early bird tickets at discounted prices are available for the entire month of March. Tickets for the ceremony and after-party are $125. Tickets that include the pre-ceremony VIP Cocktail Reception are $225. Prices will increase by $25 beginning April 1st.

Lambda Literary Awards Corporate Sponsors will be announced soon. To inquire about sponsorship, contact Tony Valenzuela, Executive Director at tvalenzuela@lambdaliterary.org